When he was just eleven, William Cobbett decided to leave his hometown, where he was already working as a gardener, and find work at Kew Gardens some thirty miles distant. He walked all the way and arrived with just threepence to his name, which he spent on a copy of ‘A Tale of a Tub’ simply the title intrigued him.

Happily, the book proved as fascinating as the title had promised; and propped up against a haystack William read it avidly until night fell, caring about neither supper nor a bed. As soon as dawn came, he went in search of a job in Kew gardens, still reading: Cobbett ever afterwards regarded that as the start of his intellectual life.

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